


Important

by Sunhawk16



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Animal Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-05 23:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14629476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunhawk16/pseuds/Sunhawk16
Summary: Ok, this one has been sitting for a very long time because it really didn't end well. Not that it ends much better now, but at least the characters aren't just standing there staring at each other any more. That seems to be the requirement this year... if it has an ending, it's post-able.Hope I can pull this off, I'm rapidly running out of things with endings... >_>This one is a bit angsty and from Heero's POV.Posted for day 6 of the 12 days of Christmas 2017.





	Important

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, this one has been sitting for a very long time because it really didn't end well. Not that it ends much better now, but at least the characters aren't just standing there staring at each other any more. That seems to be the requirement this year... if it has an ending, it's post-able.  
> Hope I can pull this off, I'm rapidly running out of things with endings... >_>  
> This one is a bit angsty and from Heero's POV.   
> Posted for day 6 of the 12 days of Christmas 2017.

It was a very difficult thing to see a dream die and to realize that it had been through my own lover’s actions, and completely out of my hands. Very difficult.

‘For God’s sake, Heero!’ he burst out, the argument really gaining steam once we were back in our own apartment. ‘What the hell would you have had me do?’

‘All I asked was that you fucking be polite through one stinking meal!’ I shouted back, and his eyes widened.

‘The man was making a pass at me, Heero!’ he snapped, his hands gesturing wildly. ‘With you sitting right there with us!’

‘Will you just stop with the damn accusations?’ I growled, having to stalk away from him before I really lost my temper. ‘We were in a public restaurant, Zechs Merquise is a respected, and very influential business man… he does not ‘make passes’ at men he just met!’

There was a moment of silence and when Duo spoke next, his voice had lowered and there was the sound of something there that wasn’t just anger. ‘What do you call it when a man puts his hand on another man’s thigh, Heero?’

I whirled around and glared at him, wanting to grab hold of him and start shaking. ‘That was me; I was trying to get you to shut the hell up!’

He blinked at me a moment and I thought I’d finally gotten though that thick head of his. While I won’t deny that Duo is a very fine looking man, and attracted more than his fair share of attention… not every damn body out there was after his ass.

‘You were sitting on my right,’ he ground out, and took back the few feet of space I’d put between us, standing and staring at me. ‘On my fucking right, Heero.’

I took a breath and then had to take another one; no, he still didn’t get it. ‘Do you even understand what you’ve done?’ I asked him, and knew my voice had taken on that icy tone I get when I am well and truly angry. ‘That job… I’ve been working toward that job my entire life. Every moment of my schooling; all the awards and the scholarships. All the work, has been leading up to tonight and you… you just fucked up the most important thing in my life.’

I saw him blink, saw him finally seem to figure out the ramifications of what he’d done. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. There was a spark of pain in his eyes and I knew he’d finally stopped to look at the bigger picture. He turned abruptly and walked away from me, went to stand looking out the window, turned away from me. I didn’t speak again… the ball was in his court.

‘It means that much to you?’ he finally asked, and I felt my temper flare again.

‘Duo, how the hell could you not know that?’ I snapped. ‘After all these years; how could you not know how important this was to me?’

He reached up to rub a hand over the back of his neck and said something I couldn’t hear with his back to me. I saw him sigh. ‘I’m…sorry,’ he said softly.

‘That,’ I growled, ‘does not do me a hell of a lot of good, now does it?’

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked, his shoulders hunched and still facing the window and not me. It pleased me to see that he couldn’t face me… that he finally realized the absolutely devastating results of his actions.

‘Unless you can fucking turn back time,’ I said, teeth gritted so hard my jaw was starting to hurt. ‘There is nothing you can do.’

I turned then and headed down the hall toward the bedroom before the whole thing got any uglier. I had a lot of thinking to do… I really just didn’t know what in the hell I was going to do now that the goal I’d been working toward for so long was gone. Behind me, I heard Duo call out, sounding almost desperate, ‘I’ll… fix this.’

I didn’t bother to reply; I normally found his unshakable belief that everything in life can be fixed, to be a bit naïve, but rather endearing. But he needed to learn that not every mistake can be undone. Not everything can be ‘fixed’.

~~~*~~~

He fixed it. That’s all I could think during the cab ride downtown to the Merquise building. As impossible as that was; somehow, someway… Duo fixed it. It didn’t make any sense, but what else would explain a phone call from Zechs Merquise himself at that time of night, summoning me down to the man’s offices?

There had been no trouble, despite the hour, getting inside. The watchman on duty had my name on a list and I was escorted by a second one up to the sixth floor and delivered into the presence of the man himself. The rest of the building seemed to be pretty well deserted at that hour.

I’d been in that office before, during the interview process, but it still overwhelmed me with its sheer opulence. The dark woods, the real marble, the floor to ceiling windows with a view to die for. The elegance of the place had a presence all its own. Even the necessary electronics blended in a way that looked easy, but the geek in me knew was not. No ugly, ungainly wires and cables here.

Nothing ugly and ungainly at all. Merquise himself was still dressed as he had been in the restaurant, which was something of a shock in his current setting; I’d never seen him in less than a three piece suit while in his office. Hell; I’d taken the time to throw my own suit on before answering his cryptic summons, and had felt a little embarrassed when the man noticed with a rather amused little smirk.

‘Good of you to come on such short notice, Heero,’ he said, not bothering to stand as I was ushered into his office. The security man faded away with nothing more than a nod and a look passing between them. The building was actually rather eerie with almost no one in it. I was used to seeing people moving about the halls, used to hearing the sounds of a Fortune 500 business hard at work.

‘No problem at all, sir,’ I responded and waited for him to gesture me into a seat. It was a good sign, when he did, but one I still did not understand. What had changed since that disaster of a dinner?

‘I suppose you are dying of curiosity?’ he asked, giving me that weird little smile of his that gives nothing away. The man is, as Duo says, almost scarily handsome. No human being can possibly be that perfect without some sort of… enhancements. As always, I found myself looking for signs of plastic surgery.

‘Well, I must admit it was something of a surprise,’ I ventured, probing carefully at the earlier incident. No point in ignoring it… we’d both been there, after all. ‘I had not expected to hear from you again after… what happened.’

His eyes shifted away from me for a moment, looking at something on the screen of his computer. ‘It wasn’t something I expected either, to be honest,’ he informed me, his eyes coming back to meet mine. ‘But your lover is a very… persuasive man.’

I’m afraid I blinked stupidly for a moment despite my earlier thoughts that Duo had had something to do with this. He hadn’t been in the apartment when I’d gotten the call from Merquise, but he often disappears for hours on end when we fight. I tend to retreat behind various closed doors… he tends to walk. My thought that he had ‘fixed’ things had been an errant musing born of my almost unconscious faith that Duo truly can fix anything. I hadn’t really believed he’d managed this one. ‘What?’ was the best I could come up with, and it amused Merquise even more.

‘Your charming and so very easily flustered lover came to see me this evening,’ he said, that smile changing subtly into something that made me uncomfortable. ‘He’s still here, in fact.’

My brain was working to fit those words together in my head and I just wasn’t coming up with anything that made sense. Charming? Flustered? Still here? I struggled to form words because I knew how Merquise loathed stupidity, and I was feeling fairly stupid in that moment. Utterly tongue tied. ‘Where…?’ I blurted and fought not to look around the room, like I’d find Duo standing in a corner somewhere, hiding behind some stupid potted palm tree or something.

‘Engage that agile brain, Heero,’ Merquise chuckled, the tone managing to sound altogether inappropriate for the setting. ‘That shocked expression does not become you.’

‘Duo is here?’ I managed, feeling heat trying to rise to my face at his words. ‘Then where is he?’

‘Oh,’ Merquise smiled, leaning back and regarding something on his screen again. ‘He’s just down the hall, waiting for me.’

His wording made my hackles rise and I decided to ignore the topic to get back to the point. ‘What, exactly, am I doing here?’ I asked and he raised an eyebrow at me, but if it was a question, I didn’t understand it.

‘I thought you were interviewing for a position with my company?’ the man almost purred. He was a person who understood how totally powerful he was and… enjoyed it.

‘And I thought that interview process was blown to hell this evening over dinner,’ I replied, deciding to go for blunt. Sometimes, in carefully weighed doses, Merquise liked his employees to be blunt.

‘It was,’ he said, his smile suddenly making me think more of sharks than anything else. ‘But I don’t think you understand at all just why.’

I couldn’t hold that shark’s gaze and found myself glancing down at my hands, and knew my face was starting to redden. ‘I assumed that my partner accusing you of… as he put it, feeling him up under the table pretty much put an end to the negotiations.’

‘So carefully worded, Heero,’ he murmured. ‘So very like you.’ It made me look back up at him, but he was openly watching his monitor then and wasn’t even looking at me. ‘No, what ended the negotiations was you allowing it.’

My thought processes slammed into that statement like hitting a brick wall. Was the man admitting that he…? Was he saying that he actually…? The whole thing hadn’t just been Duo’s wild…?

Merquise didn’t bother to wait to see if I would come up with coherent words, but continued, still watching his monitor and not even bothering to look at me. It was really starting to make me wonder just what in the hell he was seeing. ‘Your partner showed a great deal of restraint. He ignored three casual bumps against his knee and tolerated my patting his leg twice. It wasn’t until I actually ran my hand up his thigh that he finally objected.’

The words were so casual, so damn… unconcerned that it took me a long moment to process them. ‘You… what?’ I ground out and just stared at the man.

He finally turned his eyes my way and the look was both amused and calculating. ‘You didn’t believe your lover, Heero; why is that? Your records show the two of you have been together for over five years, and yet you simply assumed… what?’

‘He draws a lot of attention… sometimes he over-reacts,’ I heard myself saying before I got my mouth shut.

‘You want this job that badly?’ he asked, staring at me like I was a bug under a microscope. ‘You would ignore the word of your long-term lover in favor of believing a man you only met face to face a few weeks ago?’

I really didn’t like the way he kept calling Duo my lover. It was… grating on my nerves. It presumed too much familiarity between him and us, and I didn’t like it. Rather decided in that moment that I didn’t much like Zechs Merquise either. ‘What kind of twisted head games are you playing at?’ I demanded. ‘Just where in the hell is Duo?’

‘Finally back around to that, are we?’ he smiled and all I could think of was oil on water. ‘He’s right here, dear Heero,’ and he flicked his fingers toward his monitor. I didn’t need any more invitation than that and stood to round his desk where I could see what he’d been watching off and on since I’d come into his damn office.

I have to confess that I had a moment of feeling like my heart was climbing up my throat, wondering what I was going to see. I don’t really know why, don’t really know what I’d feared I might find. There was just this vague feeling that something more than precious to me was in grave danger.

All that greeted my gaze was Duo in a room that looked a lot like someone’s living room. Someone’s lavish living room. He was standing at a window much like I remembered last seeing him in our apartment, though the view he was staring at was much different from the one from our own window. I felt the strange urge to breathe a sigh of relief.

‘He is waiting for me to come and exact payment for your brand new job as my intern, Heero,’ Merquise said, and when I glanced side-long at him, he was staring at Duo in a way that made me… extremely uncomfortable.

‘What the fuck are you saying?’ I asked, and had Duo been in the room with us, he’d have recognized the tight sound of my temper coming out.

‘I am saying that your lover came down here this evening to plead your case. As I said… he’s a very charming man, and I accepted his apologies. Then I made him an offer, and he accepted as well.’

I am not, as this incident has probably painted me, a total moron. There was no doubt in my mind what in the hell we were talking about and it was all I could do not to put my fist right through the man’s perfectly smiling face.

‘Where is Duo?’ I asked him again and thought he might just laugh in my face.

‘Third door on the right,’ he said, never losing that damnably smug smile, gesturing vaguely toward the door of his office. ‘Just turn to the right.’

I had to remind myself that assault charges in that moment would not take me where I needed to go. I turned away without another word and stalked across the office, the deep pile of the carpet unfortunately masking the sound of my tread. I’d be willing to bet I wouldn’t be able to slam the damn door either.

‘His utter devotion to you is the only thing keeping me from going after him, Heero,’ the son of a bitch said to my back. ‘Normally I like a challenge, but there’s no challenge in the impossible.’

‘Go to hell,’ I growled, and was surprised when I was able to slam the door behind me after all.

~~*~~

I couldn’t get the image of Duo out of my mind; the one on Merquise’s monitor. I know my partner, and I know his body language, and I know his determination better than anyone.

He had said he would fix this for me and there was nothing that would stop him from keeping that promise if it was at all within his power. And though I didn’t have to see that to know it was true, it was there to read in the set of his shoulders. In the tension in his back.

But what was also there to read as plain as day, at least for me, was the fact that he was scared. Standing in that room for God knew how long, expecting Merquise to walk in any moment demanding… Duo’s end of the bargain, and he was as scared as I’ve ever seen him.

He’s not a man easily frightened. Not easily intimidated. Knowing that, and still being able to see the dread practically hanging over him like a cloud, made me… very damn mad. I just wasn’t sure if at Merquise… or myself.

I found the proper door, and knowing where Duo would be when I opened it, I was looking right at him as I stepped inside. I saw the flinch like somebody had slapped him and then the squaring of his shoulders. ‘Look, Merquise,’ he began before he’d even turned around. ‘I’ve been thinking about this whole damn thing and I want something in writing about Heero’s job. I figure a guy like you; what the hell’s to keep you from…’

And that was where he finally turned and found me instead of who he’d been expecting. His eyes widened and he just looked… stunned. Then the blood rushed to his face and humiliated doesn’t even come close. His determination seemed to falter.

‘Heero?’ he whispered and I saw his glance dart around the room, perhaps checking for Merquise. Duo is not a stupid person… far from it, but he doesn’t deal well with duplicity, and Merquise’s smooth manner had thrown him from the beginning. His almost instant distrust of the man I’d planned on making my employer, had been part of why I’d allowed my own wishes to over-shadow Duo’s claims. I couldn’t even imagine how he’d handled coming to that place and dealing with the son of a bitch down the hall.

‘It’s time to go, Duo,’ I told him, holding out a beckoning hand. I knew Merquise was watching at the very least, and I didn’t want to have this talk where it was entirely possible he might also be able to hear.

I saw Duo’s eyes focus past me, as though still expecting our… host to appear, and when he looked back to meet my gaze, some of that resolve was back. ‘I… can’t yet, Heero. I’m not done. I told you that I’d take care of it… what are you doing here?’

I moved on into the room, letting the door close behind me though it gave me a funny feeling. The room was not at all something you would expect to find in an office building. I tried hard not to look at the deep, plush couches as I made my way past them. ‘Merquise called me, I… know what’s going on here, Duo. Please… I want to go.’

For a moment, I saw a flash of pain in his eyes so bright I didn’t know how to answer it, but then it was gone, covered with a scowl. ‘I said I would handle this, and I meant it. I messed this up for you and I can… straighten it out. Just go on home.’

‘I told you I know what was going on here,’ I told him firmly. ‘Do you think this is how I want you ‘fixing’ things?’

He rubbed a hand over his face, I think mostly just to break eye contact with me, because when it came away, he was looking out the window again. ‘Well, this is how it gets fixed, that bas… Mr. Merquise has… has specified his terms and it’s within my power to… to grant them.’

It was painful watching him dance around the subject, as though not naming it would make it something less… unsavory. ‘To let him fuck you?’ I ground out and watched him shudder. ‘Duo… you can’t even think about it, how the hell can you think you can go through with it?’

He was quiet for a long minute, just breathing and trying to still the panic I could see in the eyes reflected in the glass of the window. ‘This is important to you,’ he finally said.

‘Not as important as you,’ I stated bluntly and his reflection met my gaze, open and needy for a moment, but hardened again a moment later.

‘You said this career was the most important thing in your life,’ he told me softly, still not able to turn around. ‘And I messed it up for you, Heero. I can’t live with something like that.’

Too late, I saw what my words had meant to him and I sighed, wishing I could take them back. ‘Thing,’ I clarified. ‘This job is… was important to me. But you’re not even in that class, Duo. You’re not a thing. I don’t say that air is important to me, because it just is. You’re… beyond important. You’re… integral.’

I could see in that pale ghost of his face how much he’d needed to hear that, but there was something there that told me he still wanted to make things ‘right’ even though he would do so by doing something that would tear him apart.

I could see the future that path would bring us, could see a life edged round with guilt and pain and recriminations and doubts, and it was just too ugly a thing to contemplate. ‘Don’t,’ I told him. ‘I wouldn’t work for that son of a bitch now if he was the last man on Earth. Come on… it’s past time to go home.’

I saw the moment he gave it up, his expression awash with a relief that left him trembling. He turned, finally, with nothing left between us and I pulled him into my arms.

‘God… I’m so sorry…’ he began and I shushed him gently.

‘Not here,’ I told him. ‘Not now. The bastard is probably watching and I won’t do this in front of him. Let’s go home.’

He drew back, eyes locking on mine in an effort not to look frantically around. I saw the heat rise to his face as he made connections and he couldn’t figure out if he should feel shocked or furious. ‘Get me the hell out of here,’ he growled and I nodded, more than accepting the plan.

I led him out of that room with an arm around his waist, relieved in an unreasonable way when the door actually opened to let us out. He didn’t object to the touch, telling me just how off-balance he was. He had to be emotionally exhausted and I wouldn’t have denied him my support even if it had been regular working hours and we had a hundred people to make our way past.

As it turned out, a hundred might have been easier than the one man who stood leaning in the doorway of his office, still wearing that damned smug little smile. I must have made a noise, because Duo tightened his arm around me enough to remind me what a bad idea it would be to deck the son of a bitch.

‘Monday morning at eight, Mr. Yuy,’ Merquise said calmly as we came abreast of him and I think I actually ground my teeth. It must be an interesting life with that sort of self-assurance. That sort of conceit.

‘I’m afraid I’ll be declining your offer,’ I managed after a moment. ‘I don’t work for assholes.’

It took him a heart-beat to respond, and I like to think I took him by surprise. We were half way to the elevators before he called out, ‘You won’t be working in the industry at all then.’

Duo stiffened at my side, but he said nothing and I couldn’t help a chuckle. ‘Been thinking about a change of careers anyway,’ I called out without turning. ‘This one suddenly isn’t very attractive any more.’

If Merquise replied, I didn’t hear it. Duo was quiet until we were in the elevator and moving. He seemed unsure just how in the hell he should be feeling, or maybe he was just feeling too much. I was starting to worry just how much the whole damn incident had harmed him when he suddenly said, ‘Heero?’

‘Yeah?’ I asked and gave him a brief squeeze where my hand rested on his hip.

‘We’re not spending another dime on Merquise tech equipment… ok?’

I grinned, seeing him trying to catch his balance, and nodded. ‘And selling off every bit we already own,’ I said, trying to help him turn the mood around.

But the smile he gave me back was wan, and he rested his head on my shoulder for the last three floors. It was surreal how quickly a dream had nearly become nightmare… the worst kind of nightmare.

~~~*~~~

Getting back to our apartment felt very much like gaining a sanctuary, I felt able to breathe again for the first time in hours. I wanted nothing as much as I wanted to just sit with Duo in my arms. It was his own restless wandering about, that told me he didn’t have that same sense of relief.

I left him staring at the tea kettle as though considering putting it on, and went to change out of my suit. It didn’t take me ten minutes, but when I came back, he was sitting at the kitchen table with the toaster oven in a dozen pieces. When Duo is upset… he tinkers.

I stood in the kitchen doorway for a long moment, watching him poke and prod, and realized that maybe it had been a mistake not to have had it out in that posh, executive sitting room while Duo had been so… off balance.

He’d had the time to pull his tattered pride together and I could feel something uncomfortable forming between us. I frowned, not able to help the fear that somehow Merquise would win after all. I was just opening my mouth, searching for words to bridge the gap, when the tea kettle I hadn’t even realized was on the burner, began to whistle. We both jumped like it had been a shot.

I sighed and moved to turn off the stove, taking down two mugs and carefully preparing our tea; the thyme mix with the bit of orange that Duo favored. I perhaps let it steep a bit longer than normal, but I was mostly getting my thoughts together, an ear cocked to Duo’s restlessness behind me.

There was the grumble of thunder in the distance and it seemed the night was echoing the tension in our apartment. When the tea was ready, I took the mugs and sat down at the table across from Duo, carefully setting his in front of him, forcing him to not ignore it. Forcing him to not ignore me.

He mumbled a thank you that was not quite grudging, but otherwise kept his attention on the job in front of him.

‘Duo…’ I began, but he poked suddenly at the crumb covered parts almost viciously, cutting me off.

‘Damn thing never has worked right,’ he growled, frowning at it darkly as though it were to blame for the entire day.

‘Duo,’ I tried again, but it was clear he didn’t want to talk about anything but appliances.

‘Stupid thing burns just about anything you put in it,’ he grumbled, scraping at something that had adhered to the grate so long ago it was just a black crust. ‘Have to watch it the whole time you’re using it.’

‘Please…’ I asked, trying to get past the façade to the real Duo. My Duo. He hides… so damn well sometimes.

‘Probably ought to just replace the damn thing and be done with it,’ he said, doing his best to pretend I wasn’t speaking at all. Somehow it made me see that condescending smirk of Merquise’s.

‘Damn it…’ I muttered and his temper flared, as though he were angry with me for not playing his game of ‘let’s pretend nothing happened’, and the screw driver was suddenly shoved through the side of the cheap aluminum shell of the toaster.

And then he just sat staring morosely at the carnage, his temper spent in that one stab.  
‘I don’t need you to fix the damn oven… I need you to fix us,’ I blurted and he finally pulled his gaze up to meet mine.

‘I don’t know how!’ he told me, a world of hurt in it.

That hurt took me up out of my chair and around the table and I pulled him up and into my arms. ‘Stop hiding from me.’

‘I’m not…’

‘You are!’ I insisted, feeling the tension in him. ‘The damn toaster needed to be fixed now?’

He didn’t have an answer and if I’d allowed it, I think he would have pulled away from me. His hands were clenched in my shirt and it didn’t escape me that he wasn’t holding me back.

‘I am sorry,’ I told him fervently, not able to remember if I’d gotten to that part before, in my need to get us as far away from Merquise as I could. ‘I lost my damn focus over that stupid job. I didn’t mean what I said… not the way you thought I did.’

The words didn’t make him relax, not that I truly thought it would be that easy, but I suppose I had hoped on some deep level. The same level that was scared to death that we were broken in a way even Duo couldn’t fix.

He’d turned his face away from me, his head resting against my shoulder because I’d left him little choice. I nuzzled gently at the back of his neck and whispered, ‘Please don’t do this…’ against his skin.

It finally made him push at me. I gave enough for him to pull back so that I could see his face, but not enough to let him get away from me. I wasn’t about to have him stalking out of the apartment at near midnight in a brewing storm.

‘Don’t do what, Heero?’ he snapped, anger flashing in his eyes, but there was something else there that told me he wasn’t even sure who he was angry with.

‘Don’t let that son of a bitch destroy us,’ I told him bluntly, wishing I could deflect the anger where it belonged.

He looked at me long and hard for a minute, giving another half-hearted push against my chest before saying, ‘You can’t blame it all on him, Heero.’

I blinked at him, shame worming its way up past the anger, but I couldn’t help trying to ignore it. ‘He played us, damn it. Played us like fiddles.’

I think some part of me was instantly ashamed of trying to dodge the bullet, but it was what finally got past that damned… shield of his.

‘And you let him!’ he cried, pushing at me in earnest. ‘You fucking let him!’

I refused to let him go completely, and his shoving unbalanced us enough that he staggered backward, me going with him until his back slammed into the refrigerator. It stunned him for a moment and I jumped in before he could go on, before he could say something more in the heat of anger. Something that maybe couldn’t be taken back.

‘I know that,’ I told him. ‘Damn it, I know that. And I am so sorry. I should have listened…’

‘You didn’t believe me,’ he said then, the anger all washed away and there was nothing left but the hurt. Such a huge amount of hurt.

‘I know,’ I said again. ‘I was stupid. So damn stupid. And blinded by what I wanted. What I thought I wanted.’

I leaned in to rest my forehead against his and he let me. Maybe still stunned. Maybe not as mad as he seemed. Maybe just too tired to fight me. He didn’t speak and I knew it was still on my shoulders. Still my mess.

‘I love you,’ I told him simply. ‘It’s no excuse for what I said, but I just don’t think of you in the same way. I never meant that you weren’t important. You’re not just important… you’re necessary. You’re everything to me.’

He was quiet, watching me as best he could with us so close together. He made me ache with the need to erase the last few hours. I leaned to the side and tried to kiss him; stung when he flinched away.

‘Please don’t,’ he asked in this very tight voice. ‘Not… right now.’

There was the grumble of thunder in the distance that seemed entirely too prophetically timed and it made me want to shiver. It left me just standing there holding him against the refrigerator, not knowing how else to reach him.

His arms tensed like he was going to shove at me again, but then he took a harsh breath, seeming to be tamping down on something.

‘Please let me go,’ he said, voice deceptively, artificially calm. ‘I’m… starting to feel trapped.’

I twitched, instantly feeling guilty and wanting to release him, but still afraid of him slipping away. ‘Just… stay?’ I pressed, and when I got a sharp nod, I reluctantly let my arms open. He didn’t immediately shove away from me, so I took a step back to ease his anxiety. His arms went up to wrap around his own ribs and suddenly, almost irrationally, I feared what that son of a bitch Merquise had done to him.

It took me a second to wrestle down the burst of anger. ‘He… he didn’t hurt you?’ I finally managed, as close as I could come to asking after things I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.

‘No,’ Duo replied, though he couldn’t seem to get his eyes focused on anything but the kitchen floor, and his hand reached up to rub unconsciously at the side of his neck. I couldn’t help tracking that movement and wondering what he was trying to wipe away. To erase. I had a horrible vision of Merquise standing behind Duo, dipping down to kiss the side of his throat. Of Duo tilting his head to allow it, his eyes squeezed tight shut in denial.

The anger rose back to the surface and I heard myself snarl, ‘I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.’

Duo’s gaze snapped up to look at me, and seeing me staring at his hand made him snatch his fingers away guiltily. It cemented the vision in my head into a reality, and with an almost animal growl I turned and stalked for the front door. In that moment, if Merquise had been in the room with us, I really think I could have wrapped my hands around his throat and strangled him.

‘Heero?’ Duo called after me, but it didn’t even slow me down. He had to chase after me, and I had my hand on the front doorknob before he finally caught me, grabbing hold of my arm and jerking me around to face him. ‘Heero, knock it the hell off! You think you ending up in jail for… for assault or something, is going to make this any better?’

‘I’m going to make him pay for this,’ I barked, temper as out of control as I’ve ever felt it. My entire world had been stripped out from under me in an evening. I’d had it all; I’d just come out of school with the highest marks in the history of one of the most prestigious schools in the country, I’d been poised to be handed the job I’d dreamed about since I’d put my hands on my first computer at the age of nine, and I was in a solid relationship with the most wonderful man in the world. And in just under six hours… I’d lost it all. Or… lost the most of it, and the rest I could feel slipping through my fingers like sand.

Zechs Merquise had done this to me, and I wanted the bastard to pay.

I jerked at my arm, but Duo wouldn’t let me go. ‘Damn it, Duo!’ I snapped. ‘The asshole is a sick psycho playing with people’s lives! I’m not going to let him get away with this!’

Duo just sort of… snapped then. I’ve known Duo most of my life; we’d been friends since grade school, and lovers since high school. I’ve seen him show bursts of temper before and I thought I’d seen him mad before, but I’d been wrong. Because I’d never seen anything like the fire that flared in his eyes in that moment.

Suddenly, he had me by the front of my shirt and he slammed me up against the door so hard the picture on the wall beside us fell to the floor.

‘Stop blaming him for what you did!’ he yelled right in my face. ‘Yeah, he’s a bastard! An unconscionable, unethical sleaze! But you’re the one who let him, Heero! You didn’t trust me! You didn’t… believe in me.’

His anger has always flared hot and fast, and this was no different… gone as quick as it came, and somehow burning mine away with it. When he let go of me, I found myself sliding down the door, and I landed on my butt right there on the floor. Temper gone to the cold ashes of guilt.

‘I… know,’ I whispered, and dropped my head to rest against drawn up knees.

And God help me… I started to cry. I remembered starkly the last time I’d cried; I’d been in grade school still… when my dog Dusty had gotten hit by a car. I’d seen it. Had tried to save him. He’d bitten me in his agony. I’m not sure if I’d cried for the loss or the betrayal.

I had… betrayed Duo. And I was going to lose him too now. And as much as I wanted to stalk Zechs Merquise from his opulent office back to his posh apartment and spend the next hour beating him to death… this was all on me.

All on me.

I clenched my fingers in my hair and just tried to stop sobbing.

Somewhere over my head, I heard a sigh and then Duo was sitting on the floor next to me and his familiar arms were around me and I was afraid of speaking and making them let go again.

He just sat and waited it out, waited until I could breathe again. And I knew it was still on me… I couldn’t make him fix a thing that I’d been the one to break.

‘I don’t even begin to know how to put this right,’ I finally told him. ‘You’re right… this is my fault. I shouldn’t have been blinded by a stupid dream so much that I didn’t listen to what you were telling me.’

He didn’t let me go, his arms staying tight around me, though I expected at every syllable for him to get mad again and leave me.

‘It was a dream you’ve had since forever,’ he said gently. ‘You’ve practically worshipped that man since you were in junior high school. I’m sorry, Heero…’

‘Don’t,’ I cut him off, not able to hear him say that to me. ‘You don’t apologize to me. This is on me. All on me.’

I felt him shudder. ‘No… what I almost did. What I agreed to do. Just because my feelings were hurt… that was stupid.’

Stupid. Not what I would have called it. Despite the horror of it… if had been the most amazing things anyone had ever done for me. Amazing wasn’t right… there wasn’t a right word. He’d offered to walk across hot coals for me. ‘Selfless…’ I muttered, trying to get my thoughts into words, but it made Duo snort.

‘Selfish,’ Duo told me. ‘I wanted you to hurt the way I was hurting. Just… stupid.’

I leaned into the embrace he was still giving me, curling into him and remembering. When Dusty had bitten me, Duo was the one who put a stick in his mouth and had dragged him out of the road. Gotten him out of further danger. And when I hadn’t been able to do more than sit on the ground and cry… he’d run off and gotten my father. We’d been… seven? Eight? I’d had Dusty my entire life. Duo had tried so hard to fix it all, going with me when my mother took me to the doctor. Sitting with me when my father had come home to tell me that Dusty hadn’t made it.

The lesson that trauma should have taught me was that Duo can’t fix everything. But what I’d learned was that he would try. No matter what went wrong he would always try.

‘Fix us,’ I said to him then, remembering two scared little boys, and remembering which one had stepped in to do what needed doing. ‘Don’t let me screw up the only thing that really matters.’

He was quiet for a bit, and somewhere I was aware that the sound of the thunder had moved off and gone away. I felt him kiss the top of my head, and ‘I’ll do my best,’ is what he told me.

And I knew he would. But not alone. I wasn’t so much of a moron that I couldn’t see it was not a thing I could just leave in his hands. This was a broken thing that would take two pairs of hands to work all the pieces back into place.

‘Me too,’ I replied, and vowed I would never doubt him again. Never take him for granted again. Never let myself become so obsessed with something, that I lost sight of what was truly important to me again.

Words can cut… but only actions can heal.

I had a lot to prove, but as long as Duo was willing to let me try… prove it I would. He is… integral.


End file.
